Lightest WDH's?
This is also posted in the Jayco forums, but I thought I'd solicit opinions here too! Getting a first time TT (had to replace the fifth in the signature). In sum, between the Equalizer WDH the dea...
Forum Discussion
Since this was my post that came back from the dead....here's the rest of the story:
Had the Jayco on order, but went to the local RV show for kicks. Saw the Grand Design line, and the DW had me cancel the Jayco, and we went with a Grand Design Imagine 2670MK. I bought the Andersen on Amazon, and installed it in the dealers lot when we picked up the trailer (dealer was unfamiliar with it, didn't really want to order it or install it). It was really straight forward, pretty easy to do. But....
Driving over 60mph, over the course of a few 60 to 120 mile trips, I got many instances of mild sway, and twice bad enough to set off the trucks anti-sway alarms. Did a lot of trips to scales, and re-checking the Andersen setup. Water tanks are ahead of the axels, with full water tongue weight was at 11%. There wasn't much I could do to bump it more with that trailer configuration, beyond loading gold bars or sandbags up by the battery.
Rather than trying other brands of hitches that may not work well either, spent the big $$ for a ProPride. It is very heavy. TW is now 12.5% (920 lbs) at the scale, dry. Whether the weight or the design of the PP, all is great now.
The Andersen may be fine where tongue weight is in medium to heavy (in terms of %) condition, but for me it was not useable. I did have to tighten the chains to "8 threads" to return the truck to Ford recommended 50% front fender rise. Did not keep actual scale numbers, so can't quote them. But I feel I could have gotten it to zero rise, if I worked at it a bit. My impression is that at 34', the trailer is just too long for the Andersen, which allows it to overcome the friction cup sway dampening too easily. That, along with the too little TW, I'm guessing was my issue.
Had the Jayco on order, but went to the local RV show for kicks. Saw the Grand Design line, and the DW had me cancel the Jayco, and we went with a Grand Design Imagine 2670MK. I bought the Andersen on Amazon, and installed it in the dealers lot when we picked up the trailer (dealer was unfamiliar with it, didn't really want to order it or install it). It was really straight forward, pretty easy to do. But....
Driving over 60mph, over the course of a few 60 to 120 mile trips, I got many instances of mild sway, and twice bad enough to set off the trucks anti-sway alarms. Did a lot of trips to scales, and re-checking the Andersen setup. Water tanks are ahead of the axels, with full water tongue weight was at 11%. There wasn't much I could do to bump it more with that trailer configuration, beyond loading gold bars or sandbags up by the battery.
Rather than trying other brands of hitches that may not work well either, spent the big $$ for a ProPride. It is very heavy. TW is now 12.5% (920 lbs) at the scale, dry. Whether the weight or the design of the PP, all is great now.
The Andersen may be fine where tongue weight is in medium to heavy (in terms of %) condition, but for me it was not useable. I did have to tighten the chains to "8 threads" to return the truck to Ford recommended 50% front fender rise. Did not keep actual scale numbers, so can't quote them. But I feel I could have gotten it to zero rise, if I worked at it a bit. My impression is that at 34', the trailer is just too long for the Andersen, which allows it to overcome the friction cup sway dampening too easily. That, along with the too little TW, I'm guessing was my issue.
